The Monmouth Museum recently created Artist Talk, a podcast series interviewing New Jersey artists, as they discuss their creative journeys, techniques, and preferred mediums. Artists share pivotal moments in their life where art had a significant impact, as well as creative outlets that helped shape their life.
Artist Talk is available on Spotify.
Episode 10: Carol Schwartz
Carol Schwartz sits with Executive Director of the Monmouth Museum, Erika Schaefer, to talk about her creative journey as an artist. "At heart, I am a builder, having begun my adult life as an architect/designer, I am accustomed to the planning process, a process that I love. A casual encounter with people engaged in their everyday activities will spark, for me, a future sculpture. It is the ordinary that I find extraordinary. Even the materials I use are ordinary, like carpenters woods: 4 x 4’s, 2 x 2’s, boards and discarded wood scraps make up the deeply serious yet charmingly delightful larger than life size figures I sculpt. Paint and drawing infuses the work with life and vigor. The static poses contain a latent energy suggesting imminent movement and possibility. Experimentation has lead me to working with a range of materials. Using plaster, burlap and wire, I sculpt handbags, integral to our lives throughout history, containing items that most important to us while hiding what we chose to hid. With materials scarce during our sojourn with Covid, I explored what could be done with paper and cardboard, materials easy to come by. A new series emerged, one focusing on the Architecture of Clothing. It is after all the clothing we drape ourselves in that says the most about us. It is the garment we wear that relieves or conceals."
Carol Schwartz has received a number of awards and her work is in collections across the USA.
Episode 9: Mike Quon
Mike Quon sits with Erika Schaefer, Executive Director of the Monmouth Museum to talk about his creative journey as a contemporary mixed media artist. Mike Quon is a graphic fine artist and painter, living and working in New Jersey. A California native, he graduated from UCLA with a BFA and furthered his studies at Art Center College in Los Angeles. Greatly influenced by popular culture, and POP art, his father was an animator for The Walt Disney company, and his credits include working on the animated classics Fantasia and Dumbo. Mike Quon's artwork has made appearances in gallery and museum exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, as well as in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, The New York Times, The US Air Force Art Collection and The New York Historical Society.
Episode 8: Nanci Hersh
Nanci Hersh sits with Erika Schaefer, Executive Director of the Monmouth Museum to talk about her creative journey as a contemporary mixed media artist. Nanci is also an illustrator, educator, arts advocate and former Executive Director of the Delaware Institute for the Arts in Education. Born and raised in New Jersey, Nanci was a resident of Monmouth County for many years. Nanci has received numerous honors including three purchase awards from the State Foundation of Culture and the Arts, Hawaii and three Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grants. Her work is included in the Public Collections of Johnson & Johnson, Leland Portland Cement, and OSI Pharmaceuticals to name a few. Nanci also worked with the late Dr. Beth Deutch, founder of Herspace to create and co-curate the Art of Survival, an exhibition of artists who have either had breast cancer or been affected by it through friends or family.
For more information, visit www.monmouthmuseum.org or @themonmouthmuseum on Facebook and Instagram.
Episode 7: Natalie Lord
Natalie Lord speaks with the Monmouth Museum's Executive Director, Erika Schaefer, about her artwork, process, and being in the National Association of Women Artists.
Lord's artwork was awarded a Special Commendation Award at our show "National Association of Women Artists: Then and Now". She will be featured at our artist panel discussion on April 28, 2022.
See more of Lord's work on her instagram page @nattsdomino.art_llc
Episode 6: Amy Becker
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Local NJ artist Amy Becker is interviewed at the Monmouth Museum to talk about her creative journey as a New Jersey-based photographer.
"My interests typically explore visual stories that arise from the random interaction and juxtapositions of people, everyday found objects, and moments within those environments."
Visit www.amybecker.com to view more of her artwork.
Episode 5: Christine Romanell
Christine Romanell is interviewed at the Monmouth Museum for the fifth episode of Artist Talk to discuss her exhibit and artwork. Christine is a Monmouth Museum New Jersey Emerging Artist. Her colorful wall sculptures and installations explore non-repeating patterns informed by cosmology and physics, while rooting itself in applied design similar to Islamic patterning. Her use of rotational symmetry to generate dimensional forms allude to movement and create an event horizon, a space where the infinite tessellations of universal physics can intersect with patterns, collapsing the divide between the theoretical and the real.
Episode 4: Matt Enger
Matt Enger is interviewed at the Monmouth Museum to talk about his creative journey as a fine artist, discussing his expressive high gloss painting and printmaking, and rhythmic patterns of color. He talks about inspiration, years of experience working alongside his identical twin brother Mark who passed away, and his influences by artists like Lichtenstein, Warhol, or Rauschenberg.
Episode 3: Mark Weiss
Monmouth Museum Board Member Mark Weiss is interviewed at the Museum to discuss his creative journey, inspiration, his new book The Decade That Rocked, and his role as a board member. Mark began photographing rock bands in the seventies while residing in Matawan, NJ. He quickly became the go to guy in the beginning of the eighties, shooting covers for magazines and Album covers of multi-platinum artist one being Slippery When Wet by Jersey’s own Bon Jovi. We welcomed Mark to the Monmouth Museum where he created an Exhibition of his photography from images from his book The Decade That Rocked.
Episode 2: Rosemarie Gelber
Rosemarie Gelber sits at the Monmouth Museum to discuss her journey as a visual artist. "The most valuable interactions I have encountered have often come from the least expected places. I hope to celebrate this visually by sharing with you the treasures I have found in the people I have photographed. They have given me the opportunity to see the richness that I didn’t fully appreciate until I connected a little more deeply."
Episode 1: William Waggoner
Born and raised in central Jersey, William Waggoner has been able to turn his self-taught talents for art into a sustainable career path when forays into other vocations proved unfulfilling. His work is notable for its eye-catching compositions and bold use of colors, displaying a Pop Art and abstract style rich with enigmatic imagery and dynamic action. He is currently represented by Dab Art Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, with work available on both Artsy and Singulart. In addition to a fine arts career, William is the owner and creative director of Studio Alpha Design, a commercial arts design agency located in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.
